


faltering

by Faoi_chielt



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Gen, one-shot?, powers au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-29 17:02:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faoi_chielt/pseuds/Faoi_chielt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where the Winchester boys were born different, the hunted instead of the hunters.  Separated in the same raid that killed their father, each presumes the other dead.  Taken in and sheltered, they learn to feel again.  But nothing good is made to last forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	faltering

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Z Verse](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/29265) by impertinence. 



> written as a coda to a friend's alternate 'verse back in '07. she's since taken the verse down, but i liked this stand-alone enough to repost it here. i'd kinda like to revisit the idea now that angels are involved. :)

Sometimes, he recalls; more often, he questions.

Doubts.

Ellen's smile reminded him. Etched with fine lines, stained with fatigue and the dregs of a sorrow that can only come from great loss, it still held something pure. It took him months to assimilate, dissecting and categorizing each flutter of his chest, every tremble of his limbs during his interaction with them. Slowly he became able to associate these, reactions with words only vaguely recalled, long dismissed by a Z like himself.

Happiness.

The swelling in his chest felt when a weary woman took him in. Felt when her sun-haired daughter offered a small, strong hand to him. Lost in mere seconds, a life's last heartbeat measuring the time before stilling forever.

Sam feels the wetness streaking his cheeks with numbed detachment.

***

His gut growls, making itself known viciously. As if Dean isn't aware, not of the hollowed state of his cheeks and the fine tremors of his vision, not of the fact he's starving by inches. Dying by the breadth of a hair each day. Each hour.

It's been one month and thirteen days since his father's death.

Knowing what it means to be seen, clothed raggedly and reeking of filth, he avoids public scrutiny, venturing out rarely. He prowls the alleys at night, diving in dumpsters to fish up scraps even the dogs hold no desire for. During the day he seeks shelter in the dampened basements of gutted, abandoned buildings, making his bed of whatever is salvageable. His sleep is restless, an eye always open, alert and wary to the other residents of whatever current outcasts, addicts, and society's hunted he shares space with.

Sometimes he wonders if he ever really had a home, it feels like so long ago.

His knees give, the cold, littered pavement rushes up to meet him, too slow hands fumble a futile attempt to brace and stop his fall. His chin strikes the pavement, spots flare, familiar, before darkness slams into him like a freight train.

***

Damp warmth laves at his cheek, rough-edged softness moving across in a steady rhythm. He registers the huff of heated breath and the silken feel of fur against his forearm. Dean's eyes open quickly; gasping, he pushes away from the hound bent over him, adrenaline pumping fire and ice through his bony limbs.

_Boy, you sure are a mess._

The gruff words pass from frowning lips, nearly hidden within a rough gray beard, in a lined face that is highlighted by... _softkindworried_ , brown eyes.

Ingrained wariness leaves him pieces, stripping away and taking strength along for the ride. A few jarring, stuttering harsh moments and the pain of his jaw, his gut, his every fucking bone and joint hits him. His head bows and his eyes shutter closed.

The dog at his side senses this, whimpers, a sound of curious concern, before Dean feels a solid weight on his lap. He reaches out a trembling, scraped hand and scratches behind its ear. He doesn't hear the man's words of concern; he focuses on the feel of silken soft pelt under his abused hands before his head falls to his chest and then he's slumping over, cushioned on the hound's chest.

The rise and fall of its breath take him under; this time it's not a freight train but a soothing tide.

***

The grizzled man is Bobby. The older man in the priest's robes with the stern face is Pastor Jim.

The chocolate hound is Betsy.

Dean realizes after a few days that they all have the same eyes: warm and open.

He wonders, once, briefly, if his eyes will ever look that way again. His lids fall closed and he drifts without aim.

***

He vaguely recognizes the men as friends of his dad's, recalling photographs from years past, before his mom died. Even then they were seldom spoken to, save for long-distance phone calls and rare visits. He discovers his dad worried about Dean's safety and kept a small network of friends.

_Just in case, Bobby._

Pastor Jim received news of John's death three weeks ago. Bobby had been hunting for Dean since.

After a month's stay at the small church, Dean has weight on his bones. Not whipcord muscle and peaked cheekbones any longer, he takes small jobs the pastor finds for him. He does light lifting and hauling for a burly contractor, yard work for the bespectacled and knit-wrapped elderly women of the church, and helps maintain the aged building of the church.

A year passes, slow as molasses and quick as lightning in alternating waves. Dean's days are filled with musty, moldering, boring books and the smell of pine oil on aged wood. Pastor Jim keeps him cloistered from most of the scant population of the town, homeschooling him and keeping Dean from kids his own age. Dean hasn't got much desire for their company anyway.

Bobby visits often, Betsy tagging at his heels only to seek out Dean's side. Her owner jokes that she's a fickle bitch, excuse his language, but that she is "quite fond of you, boy". Betsy licks his hand and Dean grins, feeling the stretch and pull of his lips awkward as a newborn chick's first steps.

Dean hears the news reports, has seen the jets pass by overhead, regular as clockwork. The murmurs of Pastor Jim and Bobby don't escape his ears.

Dean knows he isn't human.

He knows his kind is being hunted.

There are no objections from him when Bobby and Pastor Jim begin training Dean in defense. Betsy watches Dean spar with them, the sweat pouring down his face and bruises stippling his skin. Her gaze is solemn and filled with an eerie gravity.

He trains harder.

***

He's nearing sixteen, taller each day it seems and muscled lean as a sapling. His hair is nearing shaggy, streaked blond by the sunlight and falling into eyes the green of darkened summer leaves.

Pastor Jim has noticed an influx of chattering young girls in his Sunday school class. Dean has developed a bit of a swagger and a smile made to make young girls, hell, grown women swoon. He flirts shamelessly, earning a cuff on the ear by Jim and a clap on the back from Bobby when the bearded, grizzled man hears the tales.

He isn't much interested, though. Not even in the willowy sweetheart with cornflower blue eyes and a dark cascade of hair or her friend, short, buxom and with a fiery bright smile.

It's not for lack of desire. Something inherent in Dean screams _no no nocan'tgetclose!_ despite the insistent heat of his blood at the sight of rounded breasts under thin cotton and the flutter of a slender hand on his arm. Perfumed. Inviting.

Instinct is a cold shower to his lust. Fear a deterrent better than any words Pastor Jim might berate him with.

He's learned the trick of being social without actually being close.

Betsy is with him always, Bobby having given her to Dean two years ago, saying She loves you like you're her own pup. Damn near forgets I exist when she sees you!.

He's become happy.

Then the nightmares begin.

His nightmares are more frequent, more violent, than they have been in years. His father's face, his voice, his dying screams. Dean can feel the scalding splash of blood on his cheek, coating his hands, and he wakes hovering two feet above his narrow bed. The cold sweat slides slickly down his spine and he yells, dropping with a crash to the mattress and splintering the bed frame.

Pastor Jim is white-faced, staring at Dean the next morning.

_You have to learn to control it, Dean. If you don't... we haven't got a chance._

_I know._

Dean's hands shake and Pastor Jim reaches out, clasping his shoulder, squeezing tightly.

***

Four months later this small world of Dean's is destroyed, a delicately built sandcastle coldly washed out of existence by the inescapable tide.

The government has decided that quietly routing out the "concerning problem of the growing population of Z youths" is no longer an option. There is now a Legion being formed, led by bureaucratic puppets and manned by the very "concerning problem" it seeks to eliminate.

The snake eats its own tail, the cycle perpetuates itself.

Dean watches as the church burns, roaring his rage before succumbing to cold, quiet horror that builds in his chest. He brings up crimsoned hands to cover his ears, smelling the flesh burning, choking on the foul smoke, even as he hears the screams slip past his ineffectual barrier.

Betsy's body is already stiffened in death, congealing blood pooling beneath her crushed skull. He watches, transfixed, as a fly lands and is entrapped. Numb, Dean counts the seconds to its death, no longer hearing the sounds of Pastor Jim's screams _is he already dead?_ or smelling the burnt flesh _God, Bobby, why did you come to warn us in person?_.

He's still watching the last fluttering of its gossamer wings when the Legion soldiers drag him away.

***

Cold white walls, not-humans staring at him.

_This is the option; death or patriotism. Decide, Mr. Winchester._

Dean barely feels his lips move, his throat work. His voice echoes in the room and falls sharply against his ears, startling him. It's guttural and hoarse, smoke seared.

"Sign me up."

He looks at his hands, seeing the ugly stains under blunt nails and in the crease of his lifeline. Blood is on his hands, on his life. He laughs, eyes tearing from the pain it causes as it rips through his abused throat.

It's the last laugh he gives, the last tears he sheds.

 


End file.
